Latest / Technically Sound Strategy / Episode 44 - The Importance of DEI Initiatives in the Current Climate With TaRita Johnson

Transcript

Episode 44 - The Importance of DEI Initiatives in the Current Climate With TaRita Johnson · Technically Sound Strategy

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Welcome to Legal Marketing Radio Production of LaFleur Marketing.
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This week I chat with TaRita D Johnson, Senior Vice President of
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Talent and Diversity at the right place about building strategic
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and inclusive talent pipelines.
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Before joining the right place, TaRita served as director of the Career Center
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at Kelvin University, where she led career coaching, employer relations, and the
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launch of the Kelvin lifework program.
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Her corporate experience includes leadership roles at Meyer and Key Bank.
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Where she managed high level talent acquisition and university relations.
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There's professional journey has also included work in admissions
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counseling and DEI program design.
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She's a master of social work from the University of Michigan and is set to
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complete her PhD in higher education at Azusa Pacific University this summer.
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In addition to her extensive certifications, she contributes
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to numerous community boards focused on workforce development
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and equity across Michigan.
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TaRita, I really appreciate having you on here with us today.
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I think that this is, the topic that we were talking about is
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really closely related to marketing.
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Even though it may not seem like it at the outset in your role with the right
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place, so explain to me what your role is.
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Explain to me your background.
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Tell me how you've gotten to be where you're at and what you're doing.
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Thank you.
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Well, I am so honored to be here today and so thankful for this opportunity.
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I am Senior Vice President of Talent and Diversity at the right place.
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The right place is a economic nonprofit development, nonprofit.
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We have three pillars, people, place, and prosperity.
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I lead people from a B2B more standpoint, more of a bridge builder between.
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Your employers, your community, and your educational institutions.
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Everything from K through 12 all the way up to beyond like your academics
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from a four year university and beyond standpoint and places around
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community development and prosperity is around economic development.
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So I'm really that people tie in helping to bridge these connections.
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I spent a lot of time visiting different companies and colleges
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and community-based organizations.
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On an annual basis, the right place sees about 600 or so companies a
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year, and I get this fun opportunity to go to different companies, really
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ask them all questions around talent, diversity, everything from recruiting,
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attracting to retention of that talent as well as their employer.
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Brand.
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I also help them around strategy in these areas or connecting the dots within the
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community, within the education system.
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So we do a number of also talent learning labs, like workshops to help
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companies strengthen whatever things that they're doing in that workforce.
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I also sit on a number of boards.
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Anything that you can think of that is related to talent
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or workforce or diversity.
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I sit on these different things within the community to help be that
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bridge builder, that connector, that voice for all sides of the equation.
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I have an eclectic background.
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I feel like I fell into this role.
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I spent many years.
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In higher education.
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So I've been everything from the resident director to vice president or
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in enrollment, or director in admissions.
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I've done I used to be a therapist.
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I have an MSW, so I dealt with that from a k. Through 12 level, right?
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In the school districts, I've lived in many different states as
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well, doing some of these things.
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And then I spent a stint in corporate talent acquisition for a long time leading
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college and university relations, as well as experience hiring across different
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positions in different industries.
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And this.
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Blend of experiences really actually helped me today.
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I used to think like, you gonna look bad, you gonna be like
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a job hopper or something.
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But now I'm able to go in many different areas and one of the things that was a
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common thread, even though I did not have a diversity title, was diversity in every
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single one of these jobs and inclusion.
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So it is also a personal passion of mine as well.
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So that's a little bit about me in a nutshell.
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I appreciate it and I think, you know that diversity, equity, inclusion
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is a passion of my own as well, and.
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I wouldn't say that, I wouldn't try to shoehorn that into the legal marketing
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radio episode because I would we go through this all the time with our clients
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and I don't think it has to be forced in.
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I think that, when we talk to clients, especially when we talk about branding,
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we're going through this right now with a client and, it's so important, when
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it comes to branding and positioning that you lead with your values, right?
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Because ultimately when a consumer is gonna come to, come to hire a law
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firm, what they want is they want a firm that reflects their values.
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It's not just about the outcome, it's about, Hey, look, you know
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this, speaking to trial lawyers, this thing happened to me.
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I want it to be made right.
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I wanna work with someone who's gonna understand my view, my worldview
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and they're gonna represent me.
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Now in the legal world over the past, I wanna say around six months or
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so, there's been a lot in the news about, about a firm called Paul Weiss.
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And, one of the things that that has happened around there is that
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they basically agreed to about $40 million in pro bono work.
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Specifically in order to cease their DEI programs and to take on some pro bono
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work for the current administration.
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And what resulted from that is, they kept some of their government work,
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but they lost a lot of clients.
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They had Oracle, McDonald's, Morgan Stanley, they shifted
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their legal work away.
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And so when you look at.
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Positioning and we look at kind of values based positioning.
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These firms have had to make a shift, right?
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And some have chosen to say, Hey, you know what these values
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weren't that important to us.
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And I think the fallout is gonna continue there.
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But even with small firms and we work with solo practitioners,
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partnerships, all the way on up.
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What people want is they want to see that.
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The organization that they work with is gonna stay true to their values because
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without that, what are they, right?
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You don't know you're gonna get ripped off.
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You don't know that they're gonna misrepresent you.
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And so I think that this ties in very directly, and values are only values
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when you're willing to take a risk and when you're real willing to hold them up.
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As we've seen from, as we've seen from Paul Weiss when people see
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that you're not willing to do that.
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It's an indicator of the type of firm, the type of people that you are.
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Tell me what you're seeing in the marketplace.
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I've got my own experience, but, tell me what you're seeing out there.
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What are you seeing among companies where are you seeing companies
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really lean in and what are you seeing as a result of that?
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It's kind of a mixed bag.
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So there are a number of companies that are standing true to their values.
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They were doing this diversity work, diversity, equity, and inclusion before
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all of these federal initiatives, and they're gonna stick with it.
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There are others that have shied away from it that just don't want no smoke,
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which speaks volumes to me, to be honest.
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Because I'm thinking, is, was this just a figurehead type thing or you're doing it
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'cause it was popular or after the death of George Floyd or so many other things,
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was it you just jumped on the bandwagon?
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And that's what a lot of people feel when we see companies move away from it.
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There are others who they know we must continue the work, but
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they have changed the titling.
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Because there's all of these federal things that are under
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attack if you use certain lingual languages and things of that nature.
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So they're still doing the work, but maybe their chief diversity officer
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is now called something else, the culture person or something else.
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I have seen a lot of, mm-hmm.
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That.
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And people still committed and working around the system because they may be
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heavily under attack, but they're still doing the work in my organization.
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I'm so grateful for our CEO.
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He said, we not changing your title, we not changing the work.
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Do what you do.
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And I, he knows me.
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I'm like, what you see is what you get.
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And this is, personal for me as well.
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I think when we think about workplace upholding those values, people wanna
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see that you're going to do what you said you were gonna do and you're
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gonna live it out, just like you said.
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And any action you take.
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Not only speaks to your clientele, it speaks to your existing employees,
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even those that won't speak up.
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And so some people see these type of things and we're in a market where people
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may be holding on to their jobs, but just a few years prior, people was quitting
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and they were calling it quiet, quitting.
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And people internalized these things and may leave their
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organizations over it in the future.
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Yeah, you're right.
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It makes a ton of sense, and I think that.
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At the end of the day speaking specifically to law firms, when law
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firms compromise their values, then it doesn't work out well for them.
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I think clarity, integrity, and leadership, they're not
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just ideals in this space.
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They're competitive advantages and, for our own positioning and we went
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through a lot of work to define clearly a, again, as part of that branding
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and positioning for our own company.
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And this is what we do for other companies too.
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But you know, step one is define your core purpose and your core values.
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Right?
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And our core purpose is empowering clients, employees, communities with
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evidence, collaboration, and creativity.
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We do that with the work that we produce.
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But that evidence piece is really important to me.
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And it's how we try to run our organization.
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We try to use evidence-based practices, right?
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And for us that commitment to diversity, equity inclusion
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is an evidence-based practice.
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And as much as I'd like it to be purely altruistic, I believe that
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it is a competitive advantage.
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Advantage.
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So I'd love to hear, based on your experience, I mean, you've worked with
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hundreds, probably thousands of companies.
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What have you seen?
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Not just in the positioning, but in the implementation of successful DEI programs.
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What's the comparison that you've seen?
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My goodness.
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So this e, exactly what you said, chip that you are doing, where you
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live out your values, it starts from the very top, from your board, from
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your executive leaders that trickle it down throughout the organization.
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There cannot be gaps.
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So if I'm at.
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Influencing from the bottom up is very difficult to do.
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But if I have a leadership that says We are standing firm to diversity, equity,
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and inclusion, whatever you call it, but you live this out in your practices, in
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your policies, when we think of hiring, you're making su sure that you have
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diverse slate of candidates or doing the best to source those candidates.
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Mm-hmm.
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We're not just bringing people in though, but we're also making strategic hiring
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decisions and we're not keeping people.
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At the ground floor.
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So if I hire a lot, if I take racial and ethnic diversity, and we know diversity
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is all encompassing of many things, but let's just take that in particular because
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a lot of that is being attacked and well, we see a lot of crisis right now, even
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in the bands of the different countries.
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But for instance, if I have all these people that come in and I
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only leave them at the cleaning staff, or my operational staff only.
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Then I'm not really living those values.
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That means that promotional opportunities.
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I am seeing this in my board.
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I'm seeing this in my leadership.
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I'm seeing this in my staffing, or at least I'm attempting.
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We know that it's not always easy.
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At least I'm making a strong attempt to do that and not just.
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The representation, but also true inclusion.
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Oftentimes, we want people to assimilate, and assimilate is not good.
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I want people to be able to live their authentic selves.
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So when you come to work, it is reflected in the cultures and the values.
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It is reflected as I look at what the office says, what does my culture say?
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Who do they see?
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So I'll give you an instance I was at years ago.
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I was in one company and I'm looking around and every picture
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was of white men, old white men.
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I didn't see myself reflected at all.
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Now, that may have been their history, but what has changed to
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change the law of who's who I see?
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Mm-hmm.
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What's representing other people?
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So I think it's.
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I must do it in action.
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I must do it in spirit.
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And I agree with you.
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It is a competitive advantage, but it's also a heart, a head, and a business,
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mindset that you must have When it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion,
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it is, are things truly equitable here?
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If you have a person that is, I like that picture of the bicycles, and
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if I give everybody the 12 speed bike, but I have somebody that's
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disabled, I'm, that's not equity.
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So it's not about being equal.
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I truly want equity and giving people what they need.
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I'm also looking at who I promote, who I develop.
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If I'm consistently picking people that look like me, that
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act like me, that sound like me.
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Diversity, equity, and inclusion takes intentionality.
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That means, wow, I don't have that, and I'm truly looking at
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people's gifts, their skills.
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I'm understanding the background, and I am providing access.
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To folks, I'm also understanding the context in which people are
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situated and in their lives.
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Not everybody got bootstraps and shoes, so I hate that.
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Comment that says, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
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What if you didn't have no straps?
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What if you handle no boots?
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And
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I hate that.
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I hate that phrase also, and we use it a lot because of, just
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because of the industry we work in.
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We work with startups sometimes and we kinda help them get spun up and
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boot bootstrapping it, like it is, the word originally was meant to be.
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An ironic position because you cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
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And then at some point the definition flipped and they said,
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oh, bootstrapping, it means you pull yourself up by the bootstraps.
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And it was meant to be like, ironic, like, what?
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You expect me to pull my that's, it's impossible.
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And I mean it is coming from like.
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We did the bootstrapping method.
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We didn't start out with investors, we, we started from the ground up.
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We had some clients, but it's, that is the exception one, not the rule,
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and then two, everybody doesn't have the same bootstraps, right?
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And so figuring out how you can create that equal playing field, I think is
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important as a society in general.
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But I think that.
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Business owners, business leaders, especially in the legal profession, like
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of all the people that I think have the visibility into the importance of the
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things that have changed to help get us closer, I think this is an area that
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should be paying special attention.
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I agree.
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I just, you think about your kids or any, anybody.
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Anybody that is on the margins, no matter who you are.
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Anybody that is not in the majority, this is my rule of thumb.
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If I do for who is on the margins, I automatically benefit the whole.
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Mm-hmm.
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And that could be anybody I remember sitting in a meeting with some
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business leaders who are not from here.
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And they were entrepreneurs and they said, how do you get in?
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Because this is a community that's very close knit.
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Mm-hmm.
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Loyalty.
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Mm-hmm.
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So there are benefits to that, but it takes an intentionality
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to say, who's not at this table?
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Who am I not using as a supplier?
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Do I use the same one every day?
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Because this was like, you know, or every year because this was, the family network.
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Like how do we make a community, our organizations more inclusive
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and see who we don't see?
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Mm-hmm.
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Human nature is gonna fall in line with who's comfortable.
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So I'm gonna, I'm naturally gonna do that.
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So it takes an intentionality to really look at who's on the margins.
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It does, and bringing it back to the general topic of the podcast, and the
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marketing, the positioning side of things.
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When you are looking to bring on clients and those clients come into your office
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and they don't see themselves represented by the people in your office, you are
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less likely to sign them as a client.
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In that moment, and I think that, I think there's a couple things.
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One, being intentional about making sure that you have an environment
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that is inviting that's bringing a diverse group of people and
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that can feel comfortable there.
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Being their whole selves.
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I think that is a marketing a competitive advantage.
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How you speak and how you position and market yourself the images that are
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used that is a competitive advantage, because the law firms that we work
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with, they want everyone as a client.
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They want if they've got a good case, they want 'em as a
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client and it doesn't matter.
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What their ethnic, racial, religious, background may be.
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They wanna bring them in as a client.
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And so having that visibility there.
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And then I think that too, in all the industries where bravery and
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having that steel hand is key.
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If you hire someone to represent you in a legal matter, you wanna know that
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they're not gonna back down, and I think that, this is an opportunity for
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leaders in the legal field to demonstrate that they are ethical leaders, that
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they're doing what's right, and that they're making a smart decision there.
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And I think that it's an opportunity for them to show that, their positioning
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their own brand is not made by fear.
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Or inertia it's made by being purposeful and, choosing a path that is going
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to communicate who they are to their clients, and that ultimately that ends
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up being their brand and position.
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I agree with that.
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Exactly.
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I don't think leadership is not easy.
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Right.
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And so oftentimes when we look at leaders throughout history, it's
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not going with the status quo.
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When we hold our brand, our values, our mission, and we live them.
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And people see that breeds credibility and trust.
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You want this different clientele, you gotta speak their language.
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You gotta go to them.
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When I was recruiting, they would say, therea, we need, diverse talent in here.
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And I said, I can't.
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I don't just recruit for my seat, then I have to go where they are.
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Even today, we're creating programs that we put these labs in community.
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So no longer is there exclusive, well, I don't know anybody because a lot
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of times our proximity to difference, no matter what differences it is,
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may be really far apart in both our professional and personal world.
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And it takes the leaders who.
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Who have empathy, who really leverage emotional intelligence and really wanna
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get to know people that are different from them so that whatever fear it is, that
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fear of being canceled or whatever is the blockage from not inviting diversity in
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which truly is a competitive advantage.
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Mm-hmm.
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They break down those walls and break down those barriers.
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We've gotta learn, how do we get beneath the surface stuff with people.
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If everybody in my circle is just like me.
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Then I have a problem and I've gotta stretch first within myself, and
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then I bring who I am in myself, my authenticity in my practice,
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in my law firm, in my business.
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I live it out because I'm also living it out in my personal life.
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That makes so much sense to me.
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So, just to kind of give you a wrap up question, not to put you on the
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spot, but if you could give one piece of advice to law firm leaders who
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are trying to navigate this turbulent landscape, balancing business pressures,
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political headwinds, their firm's core values what would you tell 'em?
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What is right.
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Not exactly going with the status quo, but if you wanna be
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a leader that leaves a legacy.
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If you wanna be the firm that stands above the rest, then
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sometimes you gotta take the risk.
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And being socially just is taking that risk.
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The folks that we've seen who have done that in history, you do put
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yourself on a line, you do lose something that is part of the process,
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and you have to make a determination.
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Who do I want to be and who do I want my firm to be?
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What is integrity?
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What is the values that I live that I can be okay with when I lay down at
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night and when this is all over from me?
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I have lived the life that I was supposed to live.
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I love that.
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Thank you so much.
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I appreciate this conversation.
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Thank you.
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I appreciate your perspective.
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This has been a great conversation.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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A big thank you to TaRita for joining us today.
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You can learn more about her work at The Right Place or
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connect with her on LinkedIn.
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Legal Marketing Radio is a production of LaFleur Marketing.
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Find us at LaFleur.Marketing and on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.